Not only ChatGpt. We are already surrounded by chatbots
We like artificial intelligence that talks a lot, but it's been with us for a while now and it's not always our friend. Mario Marchi's post
It's not how much it can really do, which pieces of our lives it can take control of and which ones it can make more efficient: what is making the fascinating popular about artificial intelligence explode is its way of communicating with us.
On the web, where with increasing involvement and normality, we have passed from the communication of the word to that of the post, from talking to chatting, here is the new interlocutor becomes the ChatBot .
We like it, it fascinates us, because it looks like one of us, but it responds to what we want.
So let's get to know him, this new companion on the net, because he's actually been in our lives for a while now.
In the beginning it was a girl, her name was Eliza. It was created by MIT researchers, led by Joseph Weizenbaum . Eliza was kind, but more curious than talkative. Whatever was said to her, she asked questions for information.
We continued, convinced – who knows why – that the artificial intelligence having a conversation should be female and so Alice (Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity) arrived: developed starting from the end of the 90s, Alice was one of the first chatbots to use artificial intelligence to generate more natural and understandable responses. A real community developed around Alice that still contributes to the growth of AI, making it more and more "human", both in terms of knowledge and in dialogue.
In 2005 it was the turn of Mitsuku, a chatbot so advanced that it was even awarded by the international community of researchers for its ability to simulate human conversation.
In the meantime, without us realizing it, chatbots for various uses spread and populated our daily lives.
They interacted with us when we wrote to an online assistance service, they chatted with us when we booked medical appointments or when we contacted our bank online.
H&M uses a chatbot to help customers find the products they want and to assist with orders, Dutch airline KLM has one that helps customers with flight reservations, check-in and flight information.
In short, without realizing it, we are gradually accustomed to chatbots, sometimes incurring – however – some inconvenience.
In 2018, a chatbot used by the UK's NHS to provide information on symptoms and medical services began to bungle and cause delays in accessing emergency medical services.
A real trouble was at Microsoft, with the chatbot called Tay used to animate Twitter with communication suitable for younger people. Tay got so in tune with the users that he began to spread insults, racist phrases and was soon silenced.
Now our new "friend" ChatGPT has learned to be cautious. He tells us many things, but he doesn't get overwhelmed, especially if we ask him for too personal advice.
He learned that we are very good at making mistakes on our own.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/non-solo-chatgpt-siamo-gia-circondati-da-chatbot/ on Tue, 24 Jan 2023 10:21:30 +0000.